Venezuelan protests erupted soon after President Nicolas Maduro claimed victory in a tense election over the weekend.
Just after midnight, the National Electoral Authority (CNE) announced Maduro had won a third term with 51% of the vote.
This would mean that socialists would continue to rule Venezuela for another 25 years. Later, it said that Maduro was president from 2025 to 2031 and had won “the majority of valid votes.”
Some governments, like those in Washington and other places, didn’t believe the findings and asked for a total count of the votes.
After many people supported the opposition’s presidential candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, and opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, on the campaign road, independent exit polls showed that the opposition would win considerably.
A 41-year-old motorcycle cab driver, Fernando Mejia, told newsaih.com as he marched with his family in Maracay, “We’re tired of this. We want freedom. We want to be free for our children.”
Venezuelan Protests cacerolazo
The street protests followed “cacerolazo” protests, in which people bang pots and pans in neighbourhoods nationwide as a traditional Latin American way to show disapproval.
A lot of the people who were walking had their pots with them.
El Valle neighbourhood of Caracas protests
In the El Valle neighbourhood of Caracas, cops used tear gas to try to get the protesters to leave.
A statue of Maduro’s mentor, the late President Hugo Chavez, was torn down by protesters in Coro, the city of Falcon state.
Earlier, there were fights at polling places in Caracas and other areas between people who supported the resistance and people who supported the government.
What is the opposition saying?
Machado said Gonzalez won 70% of the vote. She has been banned from public office, which she calls an unfair ruling.
The opposition said that rules were broken on election day because, among other things, its witnesses were not allowed to watch the counts.
A US non-profit called the Carter Center sent monitors to Venezuela to watch the election.
They asked the electoral authority to release the results immediately, which were broken down by the polling station.
Is election authority part of Maduro’s government?
Some people say that the election authority is part of Maduro’s government, even though it is supposed to be separate.
Even though there were reports of arrests and threats against Gonzalez’s followers, he has not told his supporters to take to the streets and has warned them not to get violent.
Many Venezuelan voters were disappointed when they heard Maduro would be re-elected for another six years.
Under his leadership, the economy has collapsed, about a third of the population has left, and diplomatic relations have worsened.
Sanctions from the US, the EU, and other countries have worsened the already struggling oil industry.
Dalia Romero, 59, a retired woman in Maracaibo, said, “Maduro broke my biggest dream yesterday: to see my only daughter again.
She went to Argentina three years ago.” “I stayed here alone with breast cancer so that she could work there and send me money for treatment.”
She told him through tears, “Now I know that I’m going to die alone without seeing her again.”
What happens internationally
Antony Blinken, the secretary of state for the United States, said that Washington was troubled that the official figures did not show how people voted.
When Biden administration officials told the press about the vote, they did so under the guise of anonymity and accused the government of “electoral manipulation.”
They said nothing about new punishments but left the door open for more punishments.
Brazil and the EU also wanted polling data to be made public. On the other hand, Russia, Cuba, Honduras, and Bolivia were happy about Maduro’s supposed win.
Since the time of left-wing nationalist Chavez, Caracas and Washington have been at odds.
Maduro, a 61-year-old former bus driver and foreign minister, took over when Chavez died in 2013. The US and other countries think his reelection in 2018 was rigged and call him a tyrant.
Monday saw more trouble for Venezuela’s bonds and those of the country’s oil company, PDVSA.
Getting the cake cut
Early Monday, Maduro repeated a campaign promise that Venezuela’s voting system is open and honest.
On Sunday, Chavez would have turned 70 years old. On Monday, he intends to hold a “great national dialogue,” which he announced while celebrating with allies and cutting a birthday cake for Chavez.
Venezuela’s attorney general, Tarek Saab, said that an attack on the voting system from North Macedonia had caused the results to be late. He didn’t provide any proof or other information.
Edison Research, a well-known company that polls for essential elections in the US and other countries, released an exit poll that showed Gonzalez, a 74-year-old former minister known for being calm, had won 65% of the vote, and Maduro had won 31%.
“The official results are silly,” Rob Farbman, Edison’s Executive Vice President, told Reuters in an email. Edison stood by the poll results.
Edison’s exit poll was conducted nationwide, and raw data was collected from interviews with 6,846 voters at 100 polling places.
Our company, Meganalisis, said its exit poll showed that 65% of people voted for Gonzalez, and just under 14% voted for Maduro.
A message that the Carter Center in Atlanta had planned for Tuesday was put on hold. The person said that more details would not be shared until the official report on the election was ready.
The opposition and poll observers questioned whether the election would be fair before it happened. They said that the choices made by the election officials and the arrests of opposition staff were meant to make things harder.
Last week, Machado asked the military to respect the election findings.
The Venezuelan military, on the other hand, has long supported Maduro, and there have been no public signs that military chiefs were turning against the government.
